Terahertz LasersReliable terahertz operation for commercial users.
Coherent’s team holds extensive expertise in optically pumped THz generation. With our systems capability, this team has designed and developed a THz local oscillator that was launched into orbit and is currently operational on a satellite circling the globe (see the paper below). Optically pumped THz generation offers the advantage of both high power and CW operation, ideal for development of solutions for security, non-destructive testing, imaging, and medical applications. Contact Coherent if you have a high power source requirement for commercial applications and would like to leverage Coherent’s expertise in this area.
http://www.coherent.com/products/?779/Terahertz-Lasers
Seeing this link, reminded me, that I haven't mentioned Coherent, which is definitely a large player in the commercial development of THz, and I encourage investors to do your due diligence in regard to their THz applications and development. Keeping the "targets", and players, on our radar charts is certainly something I want to accomplish here. However, in the long run, in my opinion the "Ocean" that is emerging terahertz, is so very large, that catching just a small wave will be sufficient for most investors.
So what about the title to this piece? Those new to reading about THz, may not realize the very difficult time, science has has attempting to "harness" or make THz viable, in University laboratories, much less on the factory floor. THz electromagnetic frequencies, are found in the range between microwaves and infrared. Scientific instrumentation used to harness frequencies below THz, was based upon the electronic paradigm, whereas above it, the paradigm was in photonics. The THz near-IR range, lay in a gap, where conventional science and it's tools, had great difficulty dealing with, because a stable THz beam could not be generated, and even when it was, the beam was hard to detect with the then, current tools.
(An excellent historical article on Terahertz Technology, was written by Dr. Peter Siegel, whose current webpage is linked here:
http://terahertztechnology.blogspot.com/2011/01/current-terahertz-research-by-dr-peter.html,
can be found online, published by IEEE, in March of 2002).
If you read the articles on the Coherent site, they provide concrete examples of how far the technology has progressed, and it provides a nice segue to the second part of this post, the promise of THz.
THz, a Sea change
People, (investors) search high and low for a "niche" market. Once, they are discovered, people wonder why no one noticed them before. Even a small "niche" in a world market can be hugely profitable.
When I speak about the promise of Terahertz, I'm not thinking about a small niche. No. I'm thinking about a broad transforming technology, a true "Sea change". A technology whose promise is so very large that getting your mind around how much it will change the world we live in, is truly difficult to now grasp.
I've watched this field emerge and evolve since 2005. Advanced Photonix's commercial sale last month was the first of several million contract sales that will be made in the next decade. This is not exaggeration, in my opinion, and while I'm not suggesting API, will make a majority of those sales, it along with Bridge12, TeraView, Advantest, Coherent, Zomega, and a host of other companies new and old, will emerge to supply old and new technologies based upon THz. Quantum Optics, Quantum Information Sciences, Spintronics, Quantum Nuclear Dynamics, Non-Linear Spectroscopies, new applications in chemistry and biology at the DNA, and molecular level are just some of the areas that THz will open-up, while it will fundamentally alter our existing standards on quality control, for all products you currently use, from the wood in your tables, to the pills you consume, the vehicles you drive, or fly, to the communications you use. Because it is non-ionizing, it can replace or supplement existing medical diagnostic scanning tools, and can map on the molecular and or chemical level. It has the potential to change everything we have invented to date.
As always, take my words with a huge "grain of salt". Do your own due diligence, and remember that watched pots, seldom boil. When this one does, watch out!
1/28/11
Postscript: My friend Jack, aka KaptinJ, sent me this link from 1999, which I thought was worth including in this post, for it's historical value, and relevance to the current post. In posting this I recognize Picometrix and Coherent, have no current association, as Pico is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Advanced Photonix.
http://www.photonicsonline.com/article.mvc/Coherent-Laser-Picometrix-Team-For-T-Ray-Syst-0001
Coherent Laser, Picometrix Team For T-Ray System
December 29, 1999
Picometrix Inc. (Ann Arbor, MI) and Coherent, Inc., Laser Group (Santa Clara, CA) have joined forces to develop and commercialize a time-domain terahertz (T- Ray) system.
The T-Ray technology was initially developed at Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs (Murray Hill, NJ), and subsequently transferred to Picometrix. In terahertz imaging, femtosecond laser pulses incident on the material under test trigger terahertz pulses with picosecond duration, which are then detected and evaluated. The technology has a variety of applications, including materials inspection, fault detection, moisture sensing, biomedical imaging, chemical reaction analysis, and environmental and pollution control.
Using the Coherent Vitesse laser as the femtosecond optical excitation source, Picometrix has developed a T-Ray System with up to 2-THz bandwidth in a fiber-pigtailed transceiver configuration. Both companies plan to collaborate in manufacturing and marketing of the T-Ray technology. Current activities include optimization of the T-Ray system design, in conjunction with applications development with a variety of potential system users. The two companies seek commercial partners for the technology.
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